Lincoln Loud hated a lot of things, but none so much as going to school.
On that ashy Thursday morning in early November, with an icy drizzle falling from the churning sky, Lincoln laid awake in bed and stared up at the ceiling for nearly fifteen minutes before forcing himself to get up. As he gazed vacantly into the gloom, he thought of everything his day had in store for him - the endless circus of taunting, name-calling, and outright bullying, the depression and humiliation, the degradation, and the cold embers of his soul began to grow hot. By the time he was on his feet and pulling on yesterday's jeans, he was burning with hatred. Hatred for the cute girls who looked at him like he was a disgusting creature, hatred for the jocks in their white baseball caps, hatred for the guys who could get girlfriends and hatred for their snotty bitch girlfriends themselves. Hatred for the teachers and students, for the fat school resource officer and for the janitor. Hatred for everyone who picked on him, hatred for his family, and, most of all, hatred for himself.
Hate was a powerful emotion. It could keep you going even when you had nothing left. Lincoln had learned that from personal experience. If it weren't for the bitter, abiding hatred, he would be cold and empty. Hate gave him passion, motivation, and energy. Without it, he dragged himself through the motions of life like a zombie. Hate was not something Lincoln particularly wanted to feel, but after being hit, kicked, hurt, and rejected so many times, it comes naturally, like fire from a spark. A person can only take so many blows before they grow numb and calloused. Some people can withstand a lot, others can only withstand a little. Where did Lincoln fall on that scale? He didn't know and he didn't care. Did some people have it objectively worse than he did? Probably. Did he give a shit? No, he did not. He wasn't other people and he was tired of being judged against them. Not everybody's the same. Most might be, but not all.
That's something that really pissed him off, people thinking that just because they could do something, everyone else could too. Oh, you can take being called every name in the book and then being shoved into a locker? Great, Lincoln couldn't. Words don't bother you? Well, they bothered him. Each taunt, each insult, stung harder than the last, and if he didn't surround himself with a hard shell of fury, they would reduce him to tears. He would rather seethe than cry. He was done crying. Only the weak cried and he wasn't weak.
Without turning on a light, Lincoln went over to the overfull laundry basket in the corner and pulled out a shirt from three days ago. He didn't bother checking it for stains or bad smells because he didn't give a shit. His sisters worried about how they looked, but he did not. What was the point? He'd get made fun of even if he wore the best clothes and smelled like pure roses. He grabbed a pair of socks and his shoes, sat on the edge of the bed, and put them on. The morning had barely begun but he already wanted to crawl back under the covers and hide. People and activity exhausted him; hiding his hatred and pretending that everything was okay exhausted him. He spent most of his free time locked away in his room where no one could see or criticize him. Here, behind four walls, he didn't have to wear a mask or a fake smile, he didn't have to be anything but himself. That was liberating. God forbid you have a bad day and don't smile through it and act like it's all hunky-dory. If you're not happy happy, joy, joy 24/7, you're negative and toxic and a thousand other terrible things. Society tells you - especially if you're a man - that you should be open and honest with your emotions, then rips you apart when you do.
That was another thing that made Lincoln mad. Society acted like it cared about men's feelings but attacked men the moment those feelings stopped being "I have a penis, life is great." Men, especially white ones, aren't allowed to have bad days. You're a straight cis het white man, shut up, your life is perfect. The SJWs on Facebook and Twitter did that all the time. If you wanted to gatekeep people's feelings, then they didn't have any right to complain either. They cried about being oppressed on their Apple iPhones while sipping their Starbucks and wearing their Nikes that were made by children in Bangladesh sweatshops making five cents a day. Oh, but they were sooo against slavery. They were so against fascism but ddn't say a word about Chinese concentration camps.
On the flip side, Republicans were just as bad. They played up how Christian they were but fucking hated the poor. They lived in terror of having to fork over a few dollars to help the homeless but pound their chest about Jesus, who said "Help the poor." He also said "money is evil" and what do Republicans do? Worship fucking money. They put on a big show about wanting a small government but then turned around and gave corporations all the power they took from the government. They were the reason that companies could lobby, get involved in politics, tell their employees to "be less white," and hold states and cities hostage with the threat of moving somewhere else. Republicans sucked corporate cock for so long that now corporations can do anything they want.
Lincoln despised hypocrites. Republicans, Democrats, Christians - all of them said one thing but did another. They always had but today they had no fucking shame and did it right in front of your face without even trying to hide it, then got mad if you dare call them out. They thought they were so intellectual and morally superior but they're all pieces of fucking shit.
Just like the kids Lincoln went to school with, He loathed all of them, but a few more than others. Stella and Jordan were both his friends in elementary school, but over the years, both became popular and stopped hanging out with him. Jordan was on the basketball team and Stella ran with the cool crowd, two separate groups but the same sense of superiority. Both of them ignored him and if he talked to them in the hall or at lunch, they would give him nasty sidelong glances.
Thinking of them, Lincoln peeled his lips back from his teeth like a feral dog and slammed his homework into his backpack, crumpling it and not caring. He slung the bag over his shoulder and left the room, his mood souring because he hated venturing out into the world. The world belonged to them - the liars, hypocrites, fakes, bullies, and idiots - and he resented being forced into it.
As Lincoln expected, there was a line for the bathroom. Long ago, he would slump his shoulders in defeat and go golly gee wilikers, I sure hate waiting to pee, but today he fell in behind Lisa and stood there like a slab of meat in a butcher shop freezer. Was Lola in there? If so, he was in for a long wait. Eleven, Lola was as big a princess as ever and couldn't bear spending less than half an hour putting herself together in the morning. If her hair and make-up weren't just so, she'd throw a huge bitch fit and sulk around like a spoiled brat. Lincoln didn't understand. Why did she care so fucking much? Why did her appearance matter to that extent? She wasn't going to a beauty pageant, she was going to school. Then again, people actually cared about Lola. They paid attention to her. The best Lincoln could hope for was being completely ignored. That was better than being picked on...until it wasn't.
The door opened and Lola came out in a sleeveless pink dress with white trim and white boots. In the fashion world, the sixties were back in style. Lincoln didn't know why; probably the boomers having one last hurrah before they were pushed entirely out of the industry. Lincoln hated the sixties. Everyone thought it was so cool to trip naked in the mud at Woodstock. How pathetic is that? Their free love bullshit also killed society. Lincoln read that people who get married are happier, better off financially, and produce children who do better in school. Too bad everyone was still stuck on that sixties one night stand fuck marriage bullshit. These days you need two incomes to keep a household afloat but no one wanted to get married, then they wonder why they're poor. They pop out little boys who have no fathers and then wonder why they look up to gang members and other bad men. Fucking retards. You can trace most of our social problems back to boomers. Fuck them and fuck their wannabe sixties bullshit dresses.
Lincoln almost pushed Lola into the wall for being so stupid. Hurr durr look at me in my gogo boots.
When his turn finally came, he pissed, flushed, and left. His teeth were fuzzy and his mouth tasted like the inside of a cat's litter box but he didn't care.
Downstairs, Lucy, Lana, Lola, Lisa, and Lily sat around the dining room table with bowls of cereal, Lana and Lola bickering and Lisa dividing her attention between her food and a textbook. She was technically in fifth grade but was taking high school and college courses on the side to expedite her education. At this rate, she'd graduate when she was twelve.
Lincoln hated her for that.
All of his sisters had some special or amazing talent, all of them. What did he have? Nothing. He couldn't play music or design dresses, he wasn't smart or a jock, he wasn't funny, he wasn't special. He was just...him, a video game nerd who liked science fiction, fantasy, and comic books and had poor interpersonal skills. He was a loser and he hated himself for it. His parents doted on his sisters because they made them proud. You know what they did to him? Packed the anniversary mugs he made them into the attic like trash.
But that was okay.
They were trash, just like everything else he made, loved, wanted, and did.
Lincoln's stomach knotted and suddenly, he wasn't very hungry.
He went into the kitchen anyway, poured himself a glass of orange juice, and slammed it, the pulp sticking in his teeth and tickling his throat on the way down. He swiped the back of his hand across his mouth, sat the glass in the sink, and left by the back door, not wanting to face his sisters - and his own failings - again. Would Mom and Dad get mad at him for leaving his glass in the sink? It wouldn't surprise him. If there was a full fucking load, they'd take the one thing that he put in and scold him for it. That was maybe a frustrated exaggeration, but it wasn't too far off. His sisters got away with murder but he had to own up to every little thing he did wrong. He used to feel bad about his transgressions - such as that time his sisters were split over going to the beach or to Dairyland and tried to play both sides - and would do his best to make up for it. Do you think his bitch sisters felt bad about using and manipulating him? No, they didn't, they kept on doing it and finally, he stopped feeling bad. Fuck them. They were all selfish and only cared about what they wanted.
God, some days he really hated those people.
On his way to school, Lincoln had to stop and wait at every side street because people just had to get in his way. He got madder and madder until the last time he had to wait for a car to pass, he almost lashed out and threw a rock at it.
Royal County High was housed in an ancient building dating back to the thirties with scuffed wood floors, original fixtures, and a strange smell of musk and mothballs. Kids clustered around the stone steps leading up to the main entrance and taking a deep breath, Lincoln put his head down and hurried past them. "Look, guys," someone said, "it's Yu-Gi-Oh."
They all laughed and Lincoln balled his hands into hatful fists. They called him that because he, Clyde, Poppa Wheelie, and Rusty Spokes played Yu-Gi-Oh, Magic: The Gathering, and Pokemon at lunch.
Ignoring them, Lincoln went inside and went into the cafeteria, where he found Clyde, Poppa, and Rusty sitting at their usual table. Clyde was tall and gangly in a striped shirt with a collar that everyone said looked like something Chris Chan would wear; Poppa was short and fat with pimples and splotchy patches of hair on his chin and neck (he wore a trench coat over a shirt with Goku across the chest); and Rusty looked like Larry from the 3 Stooges, balding pate and all. He was only sixteen but already losing his hair. He wore jeans and a T-shirt with a picture of Mario on it, arms spread out like he was soaring through the air. I'M SO FLY the caption said. Lincoln sat down and fisted his hands on the table, looking for all the world like an angry supervillain communing with his top generals. "I hate this fucking place," he said through his teeth.
As if on cue, a balled up napkin flew through the air and hit Poppa Wheelie in the side of the face. He sighed and looked down at his hands, his fingerless gloves ratty and beginning to unravel. Across the cafeteria, a table full of jocks pointed and laughed, then launched another napkin, this one bouncing off the back of Lincoln's head. Rusty glared at them and drummed all ten of his fingers on the edge of the table. "They're lucky I don't go over there."
Rusty claimed to know kung-fu and "other" Asian fighting styles. Why he never used them on his bullies, Lincoln didn't know. Probably because he was lying out of his ugly ginger ass.
Like Lincoln, his friends were misfits, outcasts, sad, lonely, and unattractive boys with niche tastes that everyone else decided were weird or geeky. They suffered just as much at the hands of bullies as Lincoln, maybe even more in some cases. Clyde caught hell over having two dads, and the other kids thought it was so hilarious that Rusty lived in a trailer and wore second hand clothes from thrift stores. Poppa Wheelie was the resident animefag even though all of them liked it. He was a walking encyclopedia on the topic and got so passionate when he talked about it that his face glowed. For daring to love something, he was mercilessly mocked and ridiculed. It's okay to be a "nerd" or to geek out over something if you're attractive or if you choose an acceptable thing to geek over. Football? Paint your fat beer gut blue and orange and put on a wig, it's all good. Anime? LOL WHAT A FUCKING LOSER.
The four of them had been friends through it all, and though they got on Lincoln's nerves sometimes...and though sometimes he hated them because he saw himself reflected in their faces...they were the only ones who understood him. They shared a certain bond forged through mutual suffering, the likes of which bound soldiers together even years after the battle ended. Other people, the normies, didn't know what it was like, they weren't there. Lincoln's friends did know what it was like; like him, they hated the pretty and popular kids, they hated the society that shunned them. They were just as unloved and unwanted as he was, and he considered them the closest thing to a true family he would ever have.
"Just ignore them," Clyde said and fumbled open his orange juice carton. His hands trembled and a hot flush crept across his black skin, invisible unless you knew to look for it, which Lincoln did. He was mad. More than that, he was desperate. Even together, they were too weak to fight back, and telling only made things worse. He, Lincoln, Rusty, and Poppa Wheelie had no recourse; they were at the mercy of those bigger, stronger, and better off.
Lincoln fucking hated that. He hated feeling small and powerless. "I'm tired of these fuckers treating us like this," he said, his voice a low, menacing growl.
"So am I," Clyde admitted heavily.
Another napkin hit Poppa Wheelie. "Ten points!" one of the jocks cried, and the cafeteria erupted in laughter. Lincoln bit his bottom lip and forced himself to take a rapid series of deep, calming breaths; if he didn't relax, he was going to say or do something that would get him in trouble.
Thankfully, the bell rang, putting an end to the festivities. Lincoln and his friends dispersed and went their separate ways. Without them, Lincoln felt naked and vulnerable. Anything could happen on the way to his locker and then to class. He steeled himself for what may come but made it to his locker unmolested. He put in the combo, grabbed his math book, and slammed the door.
A grinning face was there.
Lincoln's heart launched into his throat and Cristina smiled. "Hey. Linc," she said.
Tall and slender with wide hips, small breasts, and long legs, Cristina wore a skirt and a white button-up blouse, her short, reddish brown hair cutely culled at the ends. She held her books to her chest and favored Lincoln with a radiant beam that made her face glow and her eyes sparkle. Lincoln's throat swelled shut and his heart began to race; why was she looking at him like that? In fifth grade, everyone found out that he liked her and she was so repulsed that she moved classes (saying she felt "unsafe") and had pretty much hated his guts ever since.
"Uh...hey," he said uncomfortably. "How are you?"
"I'm good," she said airily. "I, uh…" she trailed off and shrugged one shoulder. "It's been a long time since we talked. I was wondering if maybe you wanted to hang out after school."
Lincoln missed a beat. His brain tried to process the information his senses were feeding it, but couldn't. Was she...asking him out? Impossible. For one thing, she was pretty and popular and wouldn't touch him with a forty nine and a half foot pole. For another, even if she had trash taste in men, she was dating Chandler. Yes, Chandler was trash, but handsome and hunky trash, so everyone - especially girls - loved him. "What about Chandler?" he finally managed.
"What about him?" she asked. "We broke up." She darted her eyes coyly to the floor and nervously bit her lower lip. "I didn't like how he treated you."
She wanted something from him. That was Lincoln's first, and only, thought. What she wanted, he didn't know. His grades weren't very good and he wasn't known for his academic aplomb, so it wasn't like she needed him to do her homework.
He didn't know why she was talking to him all of a sudden, but there was no way she was asking him on a date...or even to hang out as friends. None whatsoever.
Even so, there was a tiny flicker of hope in his heart.
Trying to play it cool and hiding that hope so as not to appear too eager, Lincoln said, "Sure, I guess. I don't really have much planned today."
"Great," Cristina smiled. "I'll see you after school."
Lincoln's Adam's apple bobbed up and down. "O-Okay."
She brushed past him in a swish of sweet smelling air and he turned to look at her butt as she walked away, the hypnotic roll of her hips exciting him so much that he popped an erection right there in the middle of the hall. He quickly covered himself with his book and bent slightly at the waist to hide it, then hobbled off to class, hoping to God no one realized what he was doing and called him out for it. They totally would too. In seventh grade, he made the mistake of looking at some of Poppa Wheelie's hand drawn anime porn at lunch and then standing up and showing everyone he had wood. They called him hard-on for years. Fucking hypocrites. All the guys got hard too and all the girls loved hard ons...but only if the guy they were attached to was cute and popular. If they weren't, their boners were creepy, weird, and downright disgusting.
Getting to class just before the bell rang, he sat at the back of the room and followed along as the teacher went through her lesson. He divided his attention between the blackboard and the back of Chandler's head. Once, Chandler glanced back, caught him, and flashed an evil grin that promised pain and torment at a later date. Lincoln's stomach turned and he thought of Cristina. Even after all this time, she was still the prettiest girl in school and Lincoln couldn't wrap his head around why she would approach him.
He guessed he would find out.
At lunch, he sat with his friends and endured the usual taunting and teasing that constituted a day in the life. Poppa Wheelie bent over a notebook and drew anime girls with grotesquely large breasts and Clyde and Rusty played a game of Pokemon. Lincoln, for his part, ate his food without tasting it, his mind a million miles away. A hot flush crept across the back of his neck and he turned around. Cristina sat at a table with all the other popular girls, a mix of preps, cheerleaders, and other assorted high school elite. She was looking right at him and a wicked smile carved across her face.
When the final bell tolled, Lincoln shoved his books into his locker and hurried outside, where he stood less of a chance of being bullied. The day that had started cold and wet was now sunny and warm, the clouds having parted and the grass dry. Cristina was standing by the flagpole waiting for him and Lincoln's stomach gurgled. A small voice in the back of his head told him to just walk away, but he didn't listen. For all his cold hatred, he wanted to be happy and easygoing. He didn't want to be mad all the time, he didn't want to carry the burden of hate in his heart. If he walked away, his hate would fester because he would never know what she wanted, he would assume she was trying to use him. But what if she wasn't? What if she really did want to make amends for the past? What if she let him touch her body?
Though it wasn't likely, he imagined that that was how she would make it up to him. I'm sorry for making fun of you for all those years. Here, let me make it better with a blowjob. His penis stirred between his legs and he willed his erection away lest it push out the front of his pants and tip Cristina off to what he was thinking. She smiled when he walked up and his face burned hotly. "Hey," he said, "I'm, uh, here."
"Great," she said and they started walking. "How was your day?"
That question took Lincoln by surprise. It was so casual and trivial, something you ask someone you've been good friends with for years, not somebody you barely knew. "It was okay," he said guardedly. "I've had worse."
"Me too," she said. "Though Chandler's been blowing up my phone. He just doesn't understand the meaning of the word no." She laughed, and maybe it was Lincoln, but there was a nervous inflection to it. "It's a beautiful day. You wanna go to the park?"
Lincoln shrugged. "Sure."
They turned onto Laymon Drive and then Brock Street, a residential avenue of two story homes fronted by trees smoldering with fall colors. They chatted about nothing of great importance as they walked and before long they wound up at Grace Miller Park. A concrete walkway led past playgrounds, gazebos, and picnic tables. Rusted metal grills planted deep in the ground leaned to one side of the other like crooked headstones in an ancient burying ground and geese glided across the surface of a duck pond choked with algae and lilypads. They stood together on the grassy bank and Lincoln restively shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Cristina filled his periphery, the soft curve of her jaw and her delicate throat begging to be kissed, her earlobe to be sucked and nibbled. His heart palpitated sickly in his chest and cold sweat began to ooze from every pore. Visions of him fucking Cristina danced enticingly through his head and his boner threatened to return, bigger and thicker this time. Part of him hoped nothing happened because if she so much as touched it, he'd spray jizz everywhere like that dude from American Pie.
Another part of him did hope something happened; he wanted to have sex once in his patheic life. He wanted to feel desired, appreciated, wanted, to feel like he mattered and was worthy of love and affection.
Finally, Cristina drew a deep breath and flicked her eyes to the ground. Lincoln could sense that she had something important to say and braced himself for whatever it was, suddenly and inexplicably certain that it would be bad.
"I just want to apologize," she said at last, "for everything. I've been thinking about it for a long time and I just...I feel really bad about the way we've treated you. The way I've treated you."
Lincoln didn't know what to say to think, and he grasped for a response. "It's no big deal," he said.
"No, it is a big deal," Cristina said and took his hand. Her eyes welled with emotion and a lump formed in Lincoln's throat. There were no longer any doubts in his mind. She was being serious. She meant what she was saying; she really did regret taking part in his bullying. "It's a big deal to me. I know it bothers you. It would bother me too. I never really thought about it before but...I don't know, I guess I'm finally growing up." She looked down at the ground again and seemed to collect her thoughts. If Lincoln was braver and surer of himself, he would have lifted her chin and kissed her, but he was not brave and sure of himself, so he did nothing. "Can you forgive me?"
"Yes," Lincoln said without hesitation. "I forgive you."
Cristina smiled and raised up on her tippy toes to kiss his cheek, the velvety touch of her lips on his skin making his heart skip and his knees quiver. She threaded her arm through his and said, "Let's go to Gus's. I'm hungry."
On the walk over, she rested her head on his shoulder and his heart beat faster than before, so loud that it echoed in his head. His dick sprang to life and he battled it the whole way there; they finally reached a compromise and it stayed semi-erect in case it was needed, but didn't make itself too obvious. Lincoln dug deep, found a hidden reserve of courage he didn't know he possessed, and slipped his arm around Cristina's shoulders. He expected her to cringe and shy away, but to his surprise, she did not.
At Gus's, they sat in a booth near the bathroom and ordered two Pepsis and two slices of pizza. They talked while they waited, and Lincoln couldn't help staring at her big, brown eyes and pert little nose. The way her moist, pink lips formed words and gave him dirty thoughts, and his dick broke their agreement to stand tall and proud.
She didn't have any money on her so Lincoln paid. It was only a couple dollars but nearly depleted his spending money for the month. Outside, the sun melted behind the western horizon and painted the sky in vivid Dreamsicle orange. "Walk me home?" Cristina asked.
"Sure," Lincoln said.
Her hand crept into his, and Lincoln came this close to exploding into a ball of confetti.
Cristina lived on the north side of town, in one of the nice middle class neighborhoods that eventually filtered out into the ritzy area where all the doctors and lawyers lived. Her house was a little one story ranch with brick around the front door and an attached garage. They followed the flagstone walk to the porch and stopped to face each other. "I had a really nice time," Cristina said and held both of his hands. Her skin was soft and warm and the shape of her hands made him dizzy.
"So did I," he said.
"Maybe we can hang out again tomorrow?"
Lincoln's head bobbed up and down. 'Y-Yeah, that'd be cool."
She smiled at him and went inside, leaving him alone on the porch. He stood there for a long time, head spinning, then broke out in a huge smile. Did that really just happen? Did he honestly hold hands with the girl he'd liked since the fourth grade? He went back over the entire afternoon, examining every word, motion, and development with a fine tooth comb, expecting to find some sign that it was a beautiful fantasy - a boom mic in the show or a string holding something up like in a low budget movie - but there was nothing, only truth and honesty.
On the walk home, his feet barely touched the ground and he whistled a light, happy tune that felt good and right on his lips. Incredible joy burst in his chest and everything just seemed plain better, the sun brighter, the air sweeter, the colors on the trees more vivid. For the past many years - he didn't know the total off the top of his head - Cristina had been a cruel and uncaring goddess, ethereal despite her callousness, and Lincoln had pined for her even though she was just another bully. He would gaze at her across the lunch room and imagine sitting next to her, kissing the side of her neck and sliding his hand up her dress, and he'd get so hard it would hurt. The fire he felt for her slowly died as the bullying intensified and hatred began to take root in his heart, but he always thought she was angelic, and he never would have guessed that she would one day hold his hand and tell him she had a nice time with him. Him of all people, the comic book nerd who got his head dunked in toilets and his butt snapped with towels in the locker room after gym class.
It had to be a joke of some kind. It just had to be. What would she see in him? Pity? Maybe. He wasn't handsome, he wasn't athletic, he wasn't smart; if you asked him what his best feature was, he would struggle to answer. Everything he did, someone else in town did better. He wrote fan fiction sometimes, but Clyde's writing was ten times better; he drew sometimes, but Poppa Wheelie blew him out of the water. There was precious little to recommend him and though he wracked his brain, he couldn't come up with something that would attract any girl, much less someone as great as Cristina. It had to be pity. He had nothing to give her - no money or academic help - and she had to know that. She was as smart as she was pretty, so if she had ulterior motives for dating him, she would go after someone else rather than dumb, poor Lincoln Loud and his thrift store hand me down clothes.
No, she wasn't using him; doing so made no sense.
Unless she was trying to make Chandler jealous or something.
Lincoln's chest clutched and his step faltered, nearly knocking him over. If anything made sense, he thought, it would be that. Didn't she say that they just broke up and that he, Lincoln, was the reason? Well, okay, she didn't necessarily say that, but she did say that she didn't like the way Chandler treated him. Therefore, she did leave him because of Lincoln, but it was more like a general thing. She saw Chandler's true colors and didn't like them. She probably would have felt the same way and come to the same conclusion - that Chandler wasn't someone she wanted to date - if he had bullied someone else. It wasn't Lincoln so much as it was the principle of the matter. That didn't explain how she went from he's a jerk for bullying someone to I want to date the person he bullied.
The only logical explanation, the one he kept coming back to, was pity. She pitied him and her own sense of guilt for participating in the bullying led her to try and make it up to him by dating him. If he played his cards right, he might even get some pity sex out of this. That wasn't exactly th type of sex he or anyone else wanted, but sex is sex, and sex with Cristina…
Right there in the middle of Franklin Avenue, fifty feet from his driveway on a cool November evening, Lincoln popped a massive boner that jutted out before him like a masthead made of denim. He hunched over to hide it and hurried home, but not before someone saw it. "Put that thing away, Loud," Mr. Grouse called from a second story window of his house. "You'll never use it anyway."
Just a few short hours ago, Lincoln would have agreed: No girl had expressed interest in him (at least not sense the onset of puberty, when being liked by a girl really started to matter) and he saw absolutely no reason for a girl to start being interested in him now. After holding Cristina's hands and gazing deeply into her breathtaking brown eyes, he didn't know. For the first time in as long as he could remember, him dying a total virgin loser was not a foregone conclusion.
Ignoring Mr. Grouse, he scurried up the flagstone walk and went inside. Lucy lay on the couch with her phone, tinny screams and chainsaw sounds drifting from the speaker telling him that she was watching a horror movie, and Lana sat cross-legged on the floor with a plastic container. Inside, a giant black spider scuttled crab-like back and forth. Lana loved all creepy crawlies but she had a strong and special affinity for spiders, the latter of which Leni was deathly afraid. Before Leni left for college, Lana couldn't keep spiders for fear of Leni finding out and going into raving hysterics, but ever since she left, Lana had been collecting spiders like some kids collect Pokemon cards.
Lincoln closed the door behind him and went up to his room. He sat on the edge of his bed and kicked his shoes off, then stretched out on top of the covers. He laced his hands over his chest and stared up at the ceiling. Cristina's face fluttered through his mind and his stomach rolled sickly. He saw her as she was when they parted, her blouse partially unbuttoned and her skirt so tantalizingly short. He pictured himself going to her and kissing her, his tongue caressing and massaging hers experly even though he had never kissed a girl before. He grazed his fingertips up her outer thighs, making her shiver, and slowly pulled down her panties, the fabric rolling and brushing down her skin, raising goosebumps of excitement across it. Damp, baking heat wafted from between her legs and Lincoln had to stop thinking about it because he was going to leak all over his underwear if he didn't.
Sitting up, he took a deep breath and contemplated a cold shower, but Lisa poked her head in and told him dinner was ready.
He thanked her and she left. He waited a minute or two for the tide of his desire to subside, then went downstairs.
Dinners in the Loud house were largely silent affairs, each kid only speaking when Mom or Dad asked about their day. Lily prattled on about everything under the sun and Lana and Lola bickered over petty things like always, but other than that, everyone kept to themselves. When Mom looked at him and asked how his day had been, Lincoln couldn't suppress a goofy smile. "It was good," he said.
"That's nice," she said, "it's refreshing to see you smile. You always look so serious."
Mom and Dad did not know about the bullying. Lincoln kept it from them the way a patriotic communist might keep terrible state secrets from his comrades. The thought of them finding out how pathetic he really was made him sick to his stomach.
After dinner, Lincoln returned to his room and lay in the darkness thinking about his day with Cristina.
He couldn't wait to do it again.
The next day, Lincoln got to school with twenty minutes to spare before the first bell of the day. His friends were clustered at their usual table looking glum like always. Lincoln bounced over and sat down. "Hey, guys," he greeted.
They all looked at him like he had a cum slinging baby dick growing out of his forehead. "Why are you so happy?" Rusty asked suspiciously.
Lincoln shrugged. It struck him as strange that to his friends, happiness was cause for concern, but then again, he was not a very chipper person by nature, so his buoyancy stood out. "Eh...I have my reasons."
"Spit it out," Poppa Wheelie said.
"Yeah," Clyde said. "What's up?"
Lincoln hesitated. It seemed kind of wrong to blab about what happened with Cristina. What if she didn't want him to talk about it? What if she was embarrassed and didn't want anyone else to find out about them?
That thought stung Lincoln deeply, and in that instant, he decided that he wanted to know how she truly felt. If she was embarrassed by him, was it worth going out with her? But what if she wasn't? There was only one way to find out, he supposed, Leaning in over the table and lowering his voice to a secretive whisper, Lincoln said, "I'm pretty much dating Cristina now."
Rusty's forehead pinched in confusion, Poppa Wheelie flinched, and Clyde favored him with a blank expression. "What?" he asked, more than a hint of incredulity in his voice.
Lincoln nodded. "Yep."
He told them all about yesterday afternoon, and when he was finished, awkward silence hung over them. "Dude...no," Clyde said. "She's using you or something."
A pang of dread rippled through him. Clyde had put into words Lincoln's greatest fear and he didn't like it. "No, she's no," he said quickly. "I could tell if she was doing that. She's serious."
"No way," Rusty said. "She's probably setting you up for a prank or something."
That thought had never occurred to Lincoln, but now that it was in his head, it made terrible sense.
And that pissed him off.
"She wouldn't do something like that," he said, doubling down. "She said she was sorr and she meant it. I looked in her eyes, dude, you can't fake that."
Did he see truth and honesty in her eyes, or did he only see his own wishful thinking? He wasn't the most socially adept person and didn't usually trust himself as a judge of character, but he felt like she was being genuine, and his gut feelings were normally right.
"You seriously think Cristina wants to date you?" Clyde asked. "Why? What reason does she have? She doesn't even know you."
"That's the point of dating," Lincoln said, "to get to know someone. You guys are just jealous because you don't have girlfriends."
Poppa Wheelie laughed out loud and Rusty just shook his head.
If he stayed here and subjected himself to this, they would plant seeds of doubt in his mind, seeds that would flourish in fertile soil and cloud his thinking. Getting up, he turned his back on his friends and walked away. He was rummaging through his locker when Cristina came up wearing a skirt and a pretty smile. "Hey, Linc," she said.
Lincoln's heart bounced joyously and his face turned bright red. "Hey," he said.
"I really enjoyed yesterday," she said, "and I was thinking we could do it again today. The carnival's in town and -"
Someone bumped into Lincoln, knocking him into his locker.
"Bitch," Chandler said as he passed.
Cristina's delicate features darkened. "Fuck you, Chandler."
"Have fun with Snow White," he said.
"I will," Cristina said tightly. She turned to Lincoln and smiled again. "So...do you wanna?"
Lincoln nodded. "Yeah, that, uh, that would be awesome."
"Pick me up at seven."
She walked away, and Lincoln watched her go, feeling on top of the world. It was a rare day when he got what he wanted. A rare day in deed.
Grabbing his books, he went off to his first class.
At lunch, he sat with his friends like nothing had happened. No one brought Cristina up, and Lincoln was content with that. If it was going to be a point of contention between him and them, he'd rather no one acknowledge it.
At the end of the day, Lincoln walked home through the golden late afternoon sunshine, his step light and airy. When he got there, he did a load of laundry so that he would have clean clothes, took a shower, and brushed his teeth. He slathered Old Spice on his armpits and spritzed himself with cologne that he got for Christmas three years ago but never had any reason to use. Wrapping the towel around himself, he went into the basement and rummaged through his landry, looking for something to wear. He was thinking khakis but that seemed a little too formal. He didn't want to come across as a giant dork or anything.
He finally settled on jeans and a polo shirt. He found his mother in the kitchen and flushed, his neck going nervously to the back of his neck. He dreaded telling her about the date because she would make a big deal out of it. "Hey, Mom?"
"Yeah?" she asked without turning.
Struggling to find the words, he said, "I, uh, I kind of have a date tonight."
She turned and looked at him. "Really?" she asked, her voice lifting. "Oh, that's nice. What's her name?"
"Cristina," he said.
"Awww. Where are you going?"
"To the carnival."
Not only did Mom bless his going, she gave him a little spending money that she probably couldn't really afford. At 6:30, Lincoln walked over to Cristina's house and knocked. She answered in a shirt and blouse, her make-up done and her hair freshly washed and brushed. She was so beautiful that Lincoln's throat swelled closed. "Hey," she said.
"Hey," he said.
She came out onto the porch and closed the door behind her. "Ready?"
"Yep."
They started walking.
The carnival was set up in a field just outside town, a collection of booths and rides and food trucks. Seen from a distance, it was all lights, dinging noises, and happy exclamations. "It's been a long time since I've been to a carnival," Cristina said.
"Yeah, me too," Lincoln said.
"I'm just glad I'm doing it with you and not Chandler," she said and took his hand.
Lincoln paid at the booth and the carny inside handed him a bunch of tickets.
The first thing Lincoln and Cristina did was go through the funhouse. They laughed at their reflections, tall and skinny, short and fat, Cristina leaning on him and the fruity smell of her shampoo in his nose. "You look good with a little extra weight," she commented.
"I could gain some," he said quickly.
"No," she said after a moment, "I like you the way you are."
That made Lincoln giddy.
Next, they rode the bumper cars. Cristina chased him down and T-boned him into the wall, and he returned the favor, slamming into her rear end. God, how he wished that comment were sexual. Afterward, they ate funnel cake, and he got some powdered sugar on his nose. Cristina laughed and brushed it off.
He tried to win her a teddy bear at a booth where you throw baseballs at a stack of metal milk bottles, but after five tries, he was almost out of tickets and had to stop. He blushed in embarrassment and Cristina patted his back. "It's the thought that counts," she said.
They wrapped up the night with a ride on the Farris wheel. From the top, they commanded a sweeping view of Royal Woods and the surrounding wilderness. A cool breeze washed over them, and gathering up all his courage, Lincoln slipped his arm around her shoulders. She scooted closer and rested her head on his chest.
Lincoln had never known pure bliss until that moment. He was so happy that he almost took off like a white haired, buck toothed bottle rocket.
When it was all over, Lincoln walked her home. She held his hands and looked up at him with sparkling eyes. Lincoln didn't know if he had ever been in love before, but he was almost certain that he fell in love then. "I had a lot of fun," she said.
"So did I," Lincoln said.
She pushed up on her tippy toes and pecked his cheek. "See you tomorrow," she said.
Lincoln smiled. "Bye."
That night, thoughts of Cristina kept him awake, and the next morning, he couldn't get to school fast enough. He wasn't brave enough to approach her in the cafeteria, but she tracked him down at his locker and they made chit chat. At lunch, Clyde took a deep breath. "Dude...I don't know, I still have a bad feeling about Cristina."
Lincoln bristled. "I don't want to talk about this," he said.
"You should," Clyde said. "I don't want to see you get hurt and I know -"
"You don't know anything," Lincoln snapped. "She's not going to hurt me. She's good and kind and beautiful."
Clyde opened his mouth to argue further, but closed it again. "Alright, man. Make your own mistakes."
That Clyde would say that pissed Lincoln off, but he let it go. Clyde didn't understand, none of them understood.
But he did.
He and Cristina were in love.
At the end of the day, he walked Cristina home. They held hands and talked like two lovers, Cristina laughing at all his dumb jokes and Lincoln wanting to kiss her so bad he shook. When they got to her house, they stood on the porch and held hands. Cristina looked into his eyes and brushed her teeth seductively across her lower lip. "My parents aren't home," she said, "do you want to come inside."
"Yes," Lincoln said breathlessly. God, he wanted that so bad. Had wanted it since he was eleven years old.
Cristina opened the door and pulled him in by his hand. She guided him through the living room, down a hall, and into what he took to be her bedroom. She stepped into his arms, pushed up on her tippy toes, and peppered kisses across his chin and face, her hands splaying on his chest. Lincoln was frozen, not knowing what to do; he had never gone this far with a girl and never thought he would.
She kissed his neck and his earlobe, making him shiver. Her humid breath broke over his fevered flesh. "Take your clothes off," she whispered, "I'll be right back."
Turning, she rubbed her butt against his erection and went to the door.
Lincoln didn't move.
"Go on," she said over her shoulder, "I'm going to slip into something more comfortable."
When she was gone, Lincoln shook his head. He was dazed, confused, and horny as fuck. God, he couldn't believe his good fortune. He hurriedly undid his belt and let his pants drop to the carpet, kicking them away. He popped his shirt off and tossed it aside. He hesitated, having second thoughts, then jammed his thumbs into his briefs and pushed them down. Now he was entirely naked, his dick jutting out before him. He looked around, then laid on Cristina's bed, posed on his side. Was this too much? He couldn't just stand there like a doofus. Maybe he should sit up and -
Without warning, the closet door burst open and Chandler and a couple other guys ran out with their cellphones out. Lincoln jumped a foot and tried to cover himself. What was happening? "Smile, you're on Candid Camera, bitch," Chandler said.
"LOOK AT HIS LITTLE DICK!" one of the other guys yelled at the top of his lungs.
"I can't believe he did it," a third guy said.
Lincoln's heart raced and his eyes darted from one laughing face to the other, his confusion so profound that his brain refused to work.
A prank.
It was a sick prank.
And they were filming it.
"Stop!" he whined, tears flooding his eyes.
Chandler grabbed his by the wrist and yanked him off the bed. One of the other guys slapped Lincoln's ass with a meaty thwack and Lincoln cried out. He thrashed and fought but another boy grabbed his other arm, and together, he and Chandler dragged him through the house. Cristina stood off to one side, her nose crinkled in disgust. "Was he on my bed? God, I need new sheets now."
Opening the sliding glass door, Chandler and the other boy shoved Lincoln ass naked into the backyard, then slammed the door. The air was cool against Lincoln's skin and he instantly broke out in goosebumps. He pounded frantically on the glass. "GIve me back my clothes!"
Chandler and the other boy laughed and high-fived.
"PLEASE!" Lincoln sobbed.
He distinctly heard Cristina say, "GIve him his fucking clothes so he can leave."
Chandler disappeared, and a minute later, he came back, opening the door and throwing Lincoln's underwear out. "That's all you get, now scram, faggot."
Weeping desolately, Lincoln put his briefs on and walked home with his head down. His humiliation was total. They broke him. And as he trudged down Franklin, his shame turned to burning rage.
Lincoln wasn't the only one to get majorly punked that day. In what may have been Royal County High's first coordinated bullying strike, Clyde was beaten up and tossed into the Royal River, Rocky was chased down by a couple jocks in a car and given an atomic wedgie, and Poppa Wheelie was hung from the flagpole by his underwear. In an hour, a video compilation of the torture Lincoln and his friends had suffered was all over the internet. By midnight, it had been viewed close to 100,000 times, and the comments section were filled with jokes, insults, and the occasional, lone dissenter who got downvoted to hell. This shit's not funny, bro, it's psychotic, tbh one said. It had five likes and 2.5k dislikes.
That night, Lincoln cried himself to sleep and relived it again and again in his nightmares, his faint hope snuffing when he realized what was happening. He died inside forty, fifty times over, and before dawn, his dreams turned dark and bloody. He strangled Cristina for betraying him and throwing him to the wolves, gouging out her lying brown eyes; he beat Chandler to a pulp; he made them suffer the way they made him suffer, he made them pay.
In the morning, his grainy eyes fluttered open and the sharp, agonizing memory of yesterday came creeping back. He groaned, rolled onto his side, and curled into a ball. He didn't know if he could face the day. He didn't know if he wanted to face the day. The video of him and his friends was going viral when he went to bed, it was probably ten times worse now. Everyone in school probably knew about it. Everyone in town. Maybe even everyone in the world.
Sighing dejectedly, Lincoln got out of bed, got dressed, and went out into the hall. Lola, Lisa, and Lucy stood in line and Lincoln fell in behind the latter. She turned and looked at him, her eyes hidden behind her bangs and her mouth a straight, expressionless line. "How are you holding up?" she asked flatly. Since becoming a moody teenager (is there any other kind?), Lucy shut herself up in her room or took off to hang out with her friends. She rarely even spoke to Lincoln except she absolutely had to, and that she was doing it now, after days of tomb silence, told him she had seen the video.
"I'm fine," he mumbled.
"It's not so bad," Lola said. "At least they didn't hang you from a flagpole." She giggled behind her hand, then forced herself to sober up. "That looked like it really hurt."
On the way to school, middle and elementary schoolers pointed and laughed, and a few cars slowed down, the drivers calling out to him. "Nice balls," someone mocked, and Lincoln started to cry. As soon as he walked through the doors of Royal County High, everyone looked at him and started to jeer. Lincoln's face turned bright red and he put his head down, silently enduring taunts and paper balls all the way to the cafeteria. He sat with his friends. Clyde stared down at the table, Poppa Wheelie gazed off into space with a hard scowl on his face, and Rusty sneered at his phone. "450,000 likes," he said. "Those fucking bastards."
"I hate them," Clyde said. His voice was low, menacing.
Poppa Wheelie said nothing, but the hard expression on his face spoke volumes.
Behind Lincoln, Cristina's voice rose out of the din. He didn't know if it was real or only imagined; did it even matter? He got totally naked. It was so gross. He thought I was going to have sex with him. Hahahahahahaha.
A spark in Lincoln's chest turned into a roaring inferno and his hand curled into a fist, his fingernails carving crescent moons in the padding of his palms. "I've had enough of this," he said. "I wanna make them pay." He looked up at his friends. Rusty considered his words carefully, nodding to himself in agreement; Clyde chewed his bottom lip; and Poppa Wheelie peeled his lips back from his teeth like a dog preparing to strike.
"So do I," he said.
"What do you have in mind?" Clyde asked.
Lincoln opened his mouth but closed it again. "Later," he said.
After school, they met at Poppa Wheelie's house. Sitting in the living room, no one else around, Lincoln told them his plan.
Shocked silence filled the room.
"A-Are you serious?" Clyde asked.
"Yes," Lincoln said, "I am. Think of all the shit they've done to us over the years. Think of all the times we went to the teachers for help and nothing happened. Someone has to put a stop to this. Someone has to make them pay."
Clyde rubbed the back of his neck.
"I'm in," Rusty said.
Poppa Wheelie was quiet for a long time, then grinned coldly. "Me too."
Last was Clyde. They all looked at him, pressuring him with their eyes to join their devilish pact. Finally, he gave a rusty nod. "Okay," was all he said.
It was settled.
They were going to shoot up the school.
The planning phase took months. They all worked odd jobs through the fall and winter, and then used Rusty's uncle, an alcoholic who sold weed and meth at the trailer park, as a straw buyer for four AR-15s. Despite what the liberals say, an AR-15 functions like any other rifle: You pull the trigger and the gun fires once. Rusty's dad had a cache of handguns stored in a closet: When the time came, they would each take one as a secondary weapon.
Every weekend, they took their rifles and hiked into the hilly woodland south of town to target practice. At first, the knowledge of what they were going to do weighed heavy on all of them, but as time passed, the uncertainty drained away. For the first time in their lives, they felt in control. The teasing and bullying was worse now more than ever, but it didn't matter because they would have the last laugh.
As it so happened, Clyde was a crack shot and fell in love with shooting. He admitted to Lincoln one day that he actually liked the idea of killing their classmates. "All the times they called my dads faggots and said they were molesting me," he said bitterly, "all the times they said my real parents didn't want me so they sold me to queers." Tears filled his eyes and Lincoln patted his shoulder. "It'll never get better," Clyde said, "will it?"
That's what they said, wasn't it? It gets better. "No," Lincoln said. "It doesn't. People like Chandler don't stop when they graduate high school. They become cops or middle management and keep on bullying people. It's just as a grown up, you get paid to deal with them."
Clyde sighed. "I don't want to deal with people like that for the rest of my life. I'd rather die."
Lincoln agreed. What did he have to look forward to in life? A soul crushing, low paying job? College debt? Being treated like a cog in a machine by a heartless corporation? That wasn't a life, it was a fucking prison. He didn't even have the promise of finding love anymore. Cristina took that away from him. When he looked up porn and tried to masturbate, he saw her face, her mocking smile, and he grew cold. Most women were just like her: Nasty, evil bitches. And the ones who weren't? What did they matter? Lincoln could never be with one if he tried.
His bullies had taken everything from him.
Now he was going to take everything from them.
Lincoln chose April 15th as D-Day. He liked the symbolism of doing it on tax day, because he, Clyde, Rusty, and Poppa Wheelie were coming to collect. Once the date was set, a weight seemed to lift from Lincoln's shoulders. He felt lighter, happier; suddenly, things didn't seem so bad. In just a few weeks, it would all be over.
On the appointed day, Lincoln went through his morning routine like normal. For the first time in a long time, he felt a stir of affection for his family, but did not act on it. They ignored him and he ignored them.
Instead of leaving at 6:45 like usual, he went up to his room and waited. Now he was starting to get nervous, and began to pace. At nine, Clyde texted him and he went downstairs. Rusty's battered old Ford, which he rarely ever drove because it stalled, was parked at the curb. Poppa Wheelie sat in the back, Clyde in the passenger seat. Lincoln climbed into the bed and they took off, belching thick exhaust smoke behind them. "You ready?" he asked.
Poppa Wheelie nodded grimly but didn't say anything. His face was the color of spoiled milk and he looked like he was going to throw up from nerves.
On the way, Lincoln opened his book bag and took out his accessories: A black tactical flak jacket, a ski mask, and the handgun he got from Rusty. Poppa Wheelie put on his own mask.
It was almost time.
They had gone over the plans for the assault on Royal County High a thousand times, and each boy knew his part. First, Rusty dropped Poppa Wheelie by the side door along the east-facing wall near the gym, then he pulled around the back and Clyde got out, rifle in hand. His and Lincoln's eyes met and they nodded to one another. It was a sign of respect...and a final farewell.
Rusty dropped Lincoln on the west side of the building and drove around the front. Lincoln ducked behind a dumpster so no one saw him and waited for the signal. His heart pounded and his stomach rolled. He regulated his breathing and said a silent prayer for strength, to who or what he didn't know. Whoever was listening, he supposed.
His phone buzzed and he checked it.
Rusty, in the group chat.
Go.
Taking a deep breath, Lincoln pulled his ski mask on, left concealment, and walked up to the door, his rifle pointed straight ahead. The door opened onto a long hall flanked by lockers. In the distance, it terminated at an L-shaped junction. Lincoln chose this route specifically because right about now, Chandler and Cristina were both settling into science class in Room 236. Lincoln went to the door and opened it. The teacher stood at the blackboard, facing the class and droning on about amino acids. She turned at the sound of the door and went pale when she saw Lincoln.
He swung the gun up and pulled the trigger.
BLAM.
The shot caught her in the stomach and shoved her to the ground. The class erupted in screams and Lincoln turned on them, his finger jerking the trigger in rapid succession. A round struck a black boy in the chest and knocked him over, another took off the top of a cheerleader's head, lending her the appearance of a volcano science project. Kids ducked, screamed, and tried to flee. Lincoln saw one of the boys who helped Chandler make that video and lit him up; he danced, jerked, and spun before falling to the floor.
He didn't see Chandler and Cristina though.
That made him mad.
Leaving the room, the moans and sobs of the dead and wounded following him, Lincoln went back into the hall. Gunfire rattled from every direction, along with the most satisfying screaming and wailing. It was a sound of suffering, of agony...of payback.
Lincoln walked down the hall with the rifle out in front of him. A girl ran around the corner and started toward him but stopped when she saw him.
He raised the gun and fired.
The round grazed her side and she dropped with a high pitched screech that brought a smile to Lincoln's face. She squirmed like a broken bug, her blood slick on the floor. She tried to crawl away, and when Lincoln passed, he kicked her in the side of the head as hard as he could, knocking her out. Who's laughing now, bitch?
Lincoln tried another classroom, but the door was locked and the lights were out. He went through the same school shooting drills as everyone else, so he knew what was up. He stepped back, shot the knob off, and kicked the door open. Someone screamed, and Lincoln fired into the empty desks, aiming low to hit the people hiding underneath. He didn't know who he hit if anyone, he simply revealed in the act of destruction. When he went to leave, he caught a flash of movement from the corner of his eye. Chandler and Cristina broke from a janitor closet, where they had likely been making out, and ran. Lincoln aimed the gun but couldn't get a clear shot, so he gave chase. The din of gunfire from elsewhere in the building came and went, and on his way, Lincoln passed a dozen corpses littering the hall. Ahead, Chandler and Cristina ducked into the library and Lincoln went after them. He aimed his gun and squeezed off a shot that struck a bookcase in a shower of splinters.
To the left, another door led to a hallway and on the right, a reading nook full of tables occupied a dead end alcove. In their panic, Chandler and Cristina went right instead of left and boxed themselves in. They turned to flee, but Lincoln was there, blocking their path. Cristina screamed and Chandler looked stricken. He went to the right in an attempt to get around Lincoln, and Lincoln shot him in the leg. He screamed and fell against the wall. Lincoln shot again, the bullet tearing out Chandler's throat and splattering the wall with rich, red blood. Hysterical, Cristina tried to run, but Lincoln threw away his rifle and grabbed her by the wrist. She stomped on his foot and attempted to break out of his grasp, but he put her in a headlock and wrestled her to the ground. "No! Stop! NOOOOOO!"
All of Lincoln's hatred bubbled up and he slammed his fist into her face, shattering her nose. She screamed and fought back but he hit her again and again until she went limp. He was deaf to sirens rising in the distance, to the gunfire of his compatriots, to the smoky cacophony of death filling RCHS. All that mattered now was justice.
Sitting down, he scooted until his back was against the wall, and dragged Cristina into a sitting position by her hair. He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close. He ripped his mask off and tossed it away, the haze in her eyes dissipating when she saw who it was. Lincoln smiled madly. "You killed me and now I'm gonna kill you."
Cristina broke down sobbing and shook her head, her mouth silently forming the word NO. Lincoln nodded. "Yes. Every girl is you now." He pulled the handgun from his waistband and brushed her hair from her face with the barrel. "I can't be with anyone else. You're the only one and we'll be together forever."
She shook and tried to pull away.
Lincoln jammed the gun against the side of her head. "Together forever ," he repeated and pulled the trigger.
The bullet passed through Cristina's skull and punched through the other side in a burst of brain matter and bone fragments. She flopped against Lincoln's chest and gushed blood all over his lap. Lincoln held her close and brushed her hair, a distant look in his eyes. His hate was gone, spent, and now he was cold.
Dead.
He opened his mouth, jammed the gun inside, and pulled the trigger. The top of his head exploded like a mushroom cloud, hair, chips of skull, and chunky brain meat splashing the wall behind him like red diarreia. His head flopped forward and spurted blood all over Cristina. Their fluids mingled in the most intimate way possible, marrying them to one another now and forevermore.
In a way, they would be together forever.
Clyde ran out of ammo near the gym, sat his gun down, and waited to be arrested. He had killed eleven people by his own estimate and police were all over the parking lot. Kids jumped from windows and stumbled out of doors, some with bullets in them. He realized that killing them didn't make him feel any better, so he hugged his knees to his chest and cried.
On the other side of the building, Poppa Wheelie stuck his gun out a broken classroom window and took potshots at a police car. An RWPD sniper on a nearby rooftop got a bead on him and fired, taking the top of his head clean off.
Rusty fared the best of them all. Wearing homemade armor under his pants and jacket, he was virtually unstopped for a while. He came out the main entrance and raked gunfire at first responders, striking a cop in the arm and another in the chest. He blew out the windows of a squad car and popped the tires of another. The police returned fire but they didn't have anything bigger than shoguns, and all their bullets lodged into his armor without hurting him.
Breaking from cover, he ran to his truck, got in, and started the engine. Bullets exploded the windows, the tires, pinged off the frame. He hit the gas and drove through a hail of gunfire, the rims scraping the pavement and kicking up sparks and cops jumping out of the way. Grimacing in determination, he spun the wheel, sideswiped a cop car, and drove over the curb. He made it as far as the street before the engine sputtered and died. The SWAT team surrounded him and lit the truck up with heavy sustained fire from their M4s. After a full two minutes, the truck was cut to ribbons and Rusty lay across the bench seat, dead.
Counting the shooters, sixty-four people died in the massacre at RCHS, making it the deadliest school shooting in US history.
Like always, Twitter, congress, and the media all blamed guns.
THE END.